CHAPTER XII
At eleven o'clock a yeoman warder announced that the ambassador's barge was ready. Baron Howard of Effingham, the Lord High Admiral, had offered to show the ambassador around the royal dockyards at Deptford. Effingham also happened to be the patron of one of the competing theatre companies. Mal wondered how many palms the admiral had greased in order to get this early introduction to the judge of the competition.
The two skrayling elders, Scarheart and Greatyard, had also been invited, and they sat with the ambassador under a canopy in the centre of the barge, shaded from the heat of the sun. Even at this early hour it was beginning to get uncomfortably hot. Mal soon began to wish some other colour than black had been chosen for his livery, or even that he could join the skraylings in the shade. Instead he stood behind the ambassador, hand on rapier hilt, though in situations like this his role was more ceremonial than practical. If anyone chose to take a shot at the ambassador from the riverbank or a passing boat, there was little Mal could do short of throwing himself in front of the arrow or bullet. And he was not about to throw away his life for a skrayling, no matter how important.
"Catlyn-tuur?"
"Sir?"
"Please, talk with us. Sekaarhjarret-tuur wish to know more about you."
Mal sat down on a cushion opposite the skraylings, arranging his rapier behind him. Perhaps this was an opportunity to find out why they had asked for him in the first place.
"What would you like to know, sir?" he asked warily.
"You are from place called Peak, north of here?" Kiiren asked.
"Peakland, in Derbyshire." His heart sank. So that was it. No sense in trying to conceal things, then. "Rushdale Hall," he added.
Kiiren conveyed the information to the elders, who nodded and smiled at Mal. He smiled back, confused. If the skraylings knew about him and Charles, why were they so pleased? Foreigners! They made no sense.
"May I ask when you are born?" Kiiren said.
Mal frowned. "In the ninth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the year of Our Lord fifteen hundred and sixty-seven."
"Twenty-six years ago."
"Yes."
Kiiren leant forward. "What count of days? What time?"
"The first day of November," Mal replied. "I know not the hour. Why, do you desire to cast my horoscope, sir?"
"I do not know this word. What is… horror scope?"
Mal spent the rest of the journey to Deptford explaining what he knew of astrology; anything to keep the skraylings from enquiring further about his own history. Fortunately they seemed well acquainted with the movement of the stars, though they called the constellations by different names. Kiiren seemed keen on teaching him the names of everything, and he did his best to oblige, though the skrayling tongue was harder to pronounce than any language he had come across in his studies. He was relieved when the massed white sails of the shipyard came into view, and he could rest his dry throat a while.
Ned woke late to find Gabriel gone and a note on the pillow. Gone home to fetch clean linens, it said. Meet me at the Bull for dinner? Dammit, how was he to break the bad news to Gabriel there? Still, he had to get it over with. He whiled away the rest of the morning practising his card shuffling and dealing, then slipped the pack in his pocket and headed out.
The Bull's Head was abuzz with gossip, something about a fight outside the Castle on the Hoop. He found Gabriel with the rest of Suffolk's Men at their usual table in a nook near the fireplace, and slid onto the settle next to him. Gabriel reached for his hand and squeezed it. His face was drawn and pale, and his free hand gripped his tankard like a vice.
"Something wrong?" Ned murmured.
"One of our hirelings is dead," Gabriel replied. "Killed in a fight."
"Anyone I know?"
Gabriel shrugged. "Hugh Catchpenny."
"Thin, pockmarked fellow? Works for whatshisface, next door to the Lewes Inn?"
"That's the one."
"Huh." Ned beckoned to a passing pot-boy. "Another ale, if you will." He glanced at Gabriel. "No, make that two."
Naismith was going over the parts with Eaton and Hendricks, trying to work out if they could double up and manage without the lost actor.
"I don't see how it can be done, sir," Hendricks said at last. "The costume changes for some of the smaller roles are tight enough as it is. There will be mistakes made if we try for more."
"We could give Catchpenny's part to Fletcher," Rafe added, "and hire someone to take his place. There would be few lines and cues to learn, it's mostly walk-on parts."
The actor-manager got to his feet. "Gentlemen!"
The taproom fell silent.
"As you know, there has been a terrible tragedy this day, the loss of our good friend Hugh Catchpenny. Now, melancholy as this business is, some good may come out of it for someone. Suffolk's Men are left a player short, and as you know, we are set to perform before the Ambassador of Vinland next week."
There was a murmur of interest from some of the assembly.
"Yes, I am hiring." He held up his hands. "Only the one part, and that small. Two shillings on the day of performance itself, and an angel if we win."
"What's the play?" someone shouted.
"A new one, by Thomas Lodge, never before played on any stage."
Eaton and Rudd cleared a space amongst the tables, and arranged some stools for themselves and Naismith.
"Not going to join them?" Ned asked Gabriel.
"It's not my place," he replied. "I am the lowliest of Suffolk's Men, barely more than a hireling."
"Early days yet," Ned told him. "You'll be up there with Eaton one day, mark my words."
Gabriel smiled, like the sun breaking through clouds. Ned swallowed. God in Heaven, I can't do this.
"Now, gentlemen," Naismith said, turning to his companions, "let us see what the tide brings in."
The first to approach was a pallid, gangly youth in clothes that had once been apprentice blue but were now faded to colourlessness, where they had not worn to holes. He mumbled a name.
"Say on, lad," Naismith told him. The young actor coughed, then recited:
"Stay, Roman brethren! Gracious… conqueror,
Victorious Titus rue, the tears I shed.
A mother's tears in passion for her son.
And – if thy sons were ever dear to… thee,
O think my son to, be as dear to me!"
"Thank you." Naismith looked around. "Next, please!"
Next up was a short shiny-faced fellow who looked more like a pastry-cook than an actor; indeed the stink of rancid butter preceding him was as good as an advertisement.
"Next!"
Ned turned back to Gabriel. "Where are all the decent players? Usually you can't spit in here without hitting a Tamburlaine or a King Henry."
"All hired by Henslowe or Burbage, or else on tour for the summer. With our three companies tied to London by this contest, there's rich pickings to be had elsewhere."
Hendricks nodded. "We'd only got as far as Sheffield before we were called back by my lord Suffolk, but Master Naismith would have pressed on to York if he could."
When Gabriel got up to go to the jakes, Ned leant across the table. The news of the murder had given him an idea.
"Hey, Hendricks," he whispered. "Do me a favour, will you?"
The boy drained his tankard and frowned at Ned. "Why should I?"
"Because if you don't, Suffolk's Men will lose this contest."
"Is that a threat?"
"No!" He looked around at the other actors, but they were busy watching the auditions, "I'm just worried about Gabe. I don't think he should be left alone right now, not after this attack on Catchpenny."
"You think someone's out to ruin us by murdering our players?"
"Probably not. But better safe than sorry, right? And Gabe's the only one who lives alone." The only one who matters, anyway.
"Can't he stay with you?"
"No," Ned said hurriedly. "Mam's got a cough, and I don't want him to catch it and lose his voice. No, he's better staying at Naismith's."
"Tell him that yourself."
"He won't listen to me. Thinks I fuss over him too much already. That's why I need you."
"All right," Hendricks said at last. "What am I to say?"
"I don't know. Use your wits. Flatter him. Tell him your apprentice lads are crying themselves to sleep with fright over this contest and need a ministering angel."
Hendricks eyed him suspiciously.
"I still reckon you're up to something."
"What do you want me to say? That I'm in love with the man, and can't sleep at night for fear of anything happening to him? There, I've said it." He looked over his shoulder. "Ssh, here he comes."
The Lord High Admiral was a stern, hawk-nosed man in his late fifties, with a sunburnt complexion and an energy that belied his years. He showed the ambassador and the elders around the shipyard, pointing out the differences in design between English and Vinlandic ships, of which he seemed to have a great deal of knowledge. Mal followed behind, with half an ear on the conversation. He had been on a ship scarcely a handful of times, and then only to cross one sea or another on his way to war.
Whilst Effingham pointed out one of the cranes used to lift the masts into position, Mal scanned the dockyard for any sign of potential trouble. There were tools here aplenty that could be used to kill a man, in addition to the weapons proper to naval warfare: cannons with their various forms of ammunition, arquebuses and calivers for the marines, and boarding axes.
"And this," Effingham was saying, "is the pride of our fleet, Ark Royal."
The elders nodded as Kiiren translated, gazing up at the snowy sails of the galleon. Effingham gestured for the skraylings to precede him up the gangplank.
"With your permission, my lord–" Mal put in.
The admiral grunted, then motioned for him to proceed. Mal edged up the gangplank; the galleon was rolling in the water even though it was well anchored, and the plank pitched and wobbled alarmingly. At last he reached the comparative safety of the ship and scanned the decks and rigging. A couple of the sailors stared at him, an interloper on their territory, but none of them looked ready to murder an ambassador in cold blood. He waved down to Kiiren, and the skraylings followed him up the gangplank.
They were shown all over the vessel, from poop deck to beakhead. When Effingham enquired if they wished to go below decks to examine the guns, the ambassador shook his head, but gestured to the elders to proceed. The admiral and the two skraylings disappeared through the hatch. After a few moments Effingham's voice rumbled from below as he went from gun to gun, giving the range and poundage of each, as proud as a man showing off his sons.
"Very wise, Your Excellency," Mal said to the ambassador, lowering his voice to avoid being heard by the sailors all around them. "The stench of the bilges is enough to put any man off his dinner. And the admiral keeps a fine table, I am–"
"Be gone, ye foul demon!"
Mal pushed the ambassador aside as a sailor swung past on the end of a rope, axe blade whistling through the space where they had stood. The man hung for a moment in the air over the river, and Mal drew his rapier. The sailor's eyes widened in horror as his momentum brought him swinging back over the ship, straight towards the blade. Mal leant into the stroke, a shudder running up his arm as the rapier punched through the man's belly.
The sailor let go of his rope and sagged to a halt, staring up at Mal with bloodshot eyes. Mal pulled the blade free and stepped back, edging round between the ambassador and his attacker. The man lurched forward, clutching his blood-soaked shirt, and Mal managed a slash to his legs before he got in too close for rapier work. Mal drew his dagger with his left hand and, as the sailor raised his axe, plunged it into the soft flesh of his opponent's armpit. Blood spewed from the severed artery and the man dropped his weapon with a cry, collapsing to his knees at Mal's feet.
"What in Heaven's name is going on?" Effingham barked, emerging from the hold.
"An assassin," Mal replied, holding the rapier point at the wounded man's throat.
"Captain!" The admiral looked around. "Who is this man?"
The captain, drawn sword in hand, crossed the deck. Mal suddenly realised no one had moved to help him, not even the captain. Had it happened so fast, or were they all in this together? In the sudden silence he was conscious of the warm, sticky blood coating his dagger hand and dripping onto the deck.
"Edwards?" The captain seized the sailor by his hair and wrenched his head back.
Edwards' eyes rolled up into their sockets, and he sagged, a dead weight in his captain's grasp. The captain grunted and let him go, and the dying sailor slumped to the deck.
Mal turned to Kiiren. A spatter of red dots marred the ambassador's robe at knee height.
"Are you hurt, Your Excellency?"
Kiiren shook his head slowly, never taking his eyes off his assailant.
"He almost kill me," he said in a low voice.
The skrayling elders hurried forwards, muttering in their own tongue as they stepped around the spreading pool of blood on the deck. The ambassador seemed to be assuring them he was unhurt, but the elders closed in around him as if to protect him from further attack. Mal wished that he had asked the ambassador to bring his escort aboard the ship. In future he would be more cautious.
He wiped both blades on the sleeve of his doublet – it was soaked in blood already, a little more would make no difference – and sheathed them.
"I think His Excellency has seen enough," he told the admiral.
"Indeed," Effingham replied. He turned to the captain. "See to this mess, Fosdyke. I want every man aboard questioned. Someone will hang for this."
"Aye-aye, sir."
The captain snapped a salute, his expression that of a man determined to find a scapegoat lest his own neck feel the hempen collar.
Mal wiped his hand absentmindedly on his hose. Only the first day of the visit, and already he had drawn steel in the ambassador's defence, aye, and bloodied it too. How many more zealots and desperadoes would try their luck? And how long before he failed to stop them? With a last glance round at the crew of the Ark Royal he escorted the skraylings down the gangplank to the blessed safety of the dockside.
There was only one problem with Faulkner's plan, Coby realised.
Where was Master Parrish going to sleep? Philip and Oliver shared a bed in the room opposite Master Naismith's, and Coby and the maidservant Betsy had the two servants' rooms on the top floor. Master Parrish would have to have a pallet on the floor in the boys' room. Either that or Coby would surrender her own bed and sleep in the costume store.
Faulkner got to his feet.
"So, mayhap I'll see you later, Gabe," he said with forced casualness. "Got a lot of work to do, though."
Parrish made an affirmative noise, still with half an ear on the debate over hirelings. Faulkner gave her a wink over Parrish's shoulder and left.
"Master Parrish," Coby said. "Sir?"
"Hmm?"